Kathmandu: President Girija Prasad Koirala and general Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal are in trouble of an unprecedented nature.

The fact is that the “movement” against what they call “regression” is waning by each passing days. The agitators, basically the party cadres, lifted from various districts have for their own unexplained reasons buying return tickets apparently to take care of their own private businesses back home.

Those who have been closely watching the algebra of the ongoing agitation say that things have come to the extent that the agitators and the policemen now say each other, “see you tomorrow evening” and in the process both the opposing parties apparently have developed a sort of familial bond which is what is killing the very spirit and the intensity of the agitation which is already on its thirteenth day.

The result is so far cipher, which must have come as a bolt from the blue to the sponsors of the said agitation.

Yet another reason is there which is in effect making the agitation “ineffective”. The government of late has acquired a different trick. She is arresting those leaders considered influential for the purpose of the movement. In doing so the government is thinking that when the leaders leading the agitation remain absent, the agitation will hopefully become less effective and thus become redundant. In the process, the Thapa establishment has arrested scores of leaders mainly from the Jan Morcha and is talked to have labeled certain charges that amount to State Offence.

If it is so then what could be presumed is that the Thapa ministry would toe this line and try to make the agitation a meaningless affair.

What is really disturbing is that the Government concludes that the men from the Jan Morcha were in regular contacts with the insurgents and seeking the latter’s support. This reason, as per the government but not substantiated by others, perhaps has forced it to acquire a hardened posture against the agitators more specially those belonging to the Morcha.

What remains also to be ascertained as to whether the Maoists entered into the five-party agitation? The government says they had. The agitators reject the theory.

This notwithstanding, if the Thapa establishment could furnish the proof that the Maoists had surely penetrated into the agitation at the call of the agitators, then what is for sure is that the congress and the UML will be taken to task by the international community who generally possess different views vis-à-vis the Maoists.

The purpose of the agitation, as declared by the men fighting regression, is to force the King to come to their terms.

The King remains adamant on his fresh agenda of the elections. King’s new year message does hint that he will not budge until a new parliament takes its formal shape. How the parties will react to King’s fresh message will have to be watched. Add to this Prime Minister Thapa’s claim that his government was all set to hold the elections as per the instructions of the King. The agitating political parties have been pressed to the wall, both by the King and his loyal Prime Minister.

While for Koirala and Mr. Nepal, the ongoing agitation is a matter that directly affects their future political career, for the Prime Minister, it is a joke, a mere joke indeed.

Deliberate or otherwise, the sitting Prime Minister last week revealed to a group of HR activists that his friends in the agitating parties were in contact with him and that both have been considering on how to face the elections. Thapa also said that some leaders in the opposition themselves appealed the men in the security to fire bullets on the agitators. ( Those who could have said so, suspects Punarjagran weekly, could be former ministers Joshi and Khadka. The logic provided by the weekly is that while being in power they could have some intimate acquaintances in the security system as well. )

The political parties have dubbed Thapa’s revelations as malicious.

If Thapa is correct then this exposes the defeated psyche of the agitators. If the parties are correct then it equally exposes the conspiratorial politics of Thapa-a discipline in which Thapa holds an honorary doctoral degree.

Be that as it may, understandably, the agitation should have already become a heavy political burden for Koirala and Madhav Nepal. Their cadres can’t sustain the agitation for long. Unless they devise new schemes, the agitation will die a natural death. Fortunately enough for the agitators, the students affiliated to the political parties have apparently concluded that they will have to come to the rescue of their political parties.

The King favors elections. The international community, as a rule, can’t talk against the holding of an election in a democracy. Those who support the agitators and are against elections are doing so in a subdued voice.

How Koirala and Madhav Nepal proceed with the ongoing agitation will have to be seriously watched. They would do well if they convince the population as to for what cause they have been fighting in th first place? They must now tell the population why they need the formation of an all-party government? In the same vein they should also convince the population that how the replacement of Thapa with either Madhav or Koirala will be not an act of regression?

The fact is that even if they are made the prime minister, it is the same article 127 that will elevate their ranks to the Prime Ministerial posts.

The fact is also that since the five year term of the now dissolved parliament expired late Monday evening, Koirala now can’t push his claim for the restoration of the parliament.

The politics of the country now concentrates only on the formation of an all-party government.